Standing up to bad policy

When a new business opens its doors you can count on local legislators being there as the ribbon is cut. Legislators frame tax and business policies, so we have a keen interest in what attracts business and in what keeps it away.

These past three months members of the Franklin County delegation to the General Assembly arguably did more to promote and preserve local economic activity by stopping bad policy than all of the assistance provided through our collective offices over the past decade.

We are now entering our fourth month without a complete state budget. That hasn’t been for lack of effort. The House has passed two different no-tax proposals that would have closed the budget gap. Both bills faced a cold shoulder from Gov. Wolf, causing the Senate to shelve the plans.

The Senate, under pressure from the governor, narrowly passed a plan for taxes on utility bills and a severance tax on the natural gas industry. Although that was a non-starter in the House, this past week the House took up its own tax proposals on gas production, commercial storage and hotels. All of these tax proposals would have had a profoundly negative affect on us in Franklin County.

Despite the fact that Franklin County has no natural gas, we do benefit from its development. Our county receives a portion of all impact fees, Pennsylvania gas moderates our local energy costs and natural gas producers in western Pennsylvania purchase construction and refrigeration equipment manufactured here in Franklin County. My constituents who work at Manitowoc, Frick, JLG and Volvo are building the equipment that workers in the gas fields of Pennsylvania use every day.

Additional taxes on the gas industry have a chilling effect on the growth and development of gas exploration. Sens. Alloway and Eichelberger led the way by opposing the budget plan that included severance taxes, Sen. Alloway even boldly breaking with other leaders in the Senate to cast his no vote.

The House proposal to apply a 6% tax on commercial storage was targeted directly at large distribution facilities. Michigan passed, and then quickly repealed, a similar tax after its own analysis revealed that the state would lose 7,000 jobs. How many of my constituents who work at logistics facilities near my home could afford to lose their jobs to cover the state’s temporary cash problems?

After the defeat of the warehouse tax, the House then considered a near doubling of the state’s hotel tax. Want to take your family to Philly for the weekend? You would have been hit with a 20.5% tax, making Philadelphia’s hotel tax the highest in the nation. Many of Franklin County’s hotel rooms are rented by local businesses for the use of business guests. Along with losing business travel to nearby Hagerstown, we could have lost restaurant traffic as well. Together with Rep. Kauffman I was pleased to oppose these tax increases.

There are options for closing this year’s budget gap without resorting to tax increases. I am proud to stand with my fellow legislators from Franklin County in opposing tax proposals that adversely affect the businesses on which we rely. There is no ribbon cutting to memorialize the jobs saved by standing up to bad tax policy, but the impact on Franklin County’s economy is no less significant.